An Instrument in His Hands

Part 1 Chapter 17

Part 1

Chapter 17

Andrew noticed it first. ‘Ho, ho, ho! Will you look at that, Muloki! My little sister has once again been claimed.’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked Andrew.

‘Has he kissed you?’

I turned bright red. It was enough answer for Andrew. How did he know?

‘Who kissed her?’ asked Muloki. ‘It wasn’t me.’

Andrew reached to the back of my sash and brought forth the rabbit’s foot.

My jaw dropped.

‘Rabbit’s foot?’ asked Muloki. It meant nothing to him.

‘It’s Aaron’s way of telling all the other guys to stay away from his territory. You’ve been had.’

Muloki smote his heart dramatically. ‘Stabbed!’

I giggled. I really did like Muloki.

But why did Aaron give me another rabbit’s foot? What did that mean? He knew that I couldn’t marry him and he was of marriageable age.

And so was I. Should I wear it?

I fingered the furry foot often as I went about our home filling the lamps with oil and trimming the wicks. I rubbed it against my cheek and then against my lips.

Hmmm… I liked kissing. A lot! I wanted to try it more before I became old. I wanted some good memories to last through the lonely years. Hadn’t the Lord promised that I would be loved and adored?

Why not try kissing with Aaron? He couldn’t take it that seriously, would he? He knew I had no dowry. Could he be the one to answer my prayer? Could he be my flirtation? I laughed at myself. How ironic! A grand lesson in forgiveness? My, the Lord had a sense of humor!

That night I took it to Him. I went back to the exact same place where the Lord told me I could have a flirtation and knelt on the rocks behind our gate. I poured out my heart under the stars. ‘Should my promised flirtation be with Aaron?’ I asked in prayer.

I felt the same warm and fuzzy feeling in my heart that I felt when I was kissed. Surely that meant… but, with Aaron, my enemy??

‘You will learn much by forgiving him,’ was my answer.

I would do it!

‘Don’t tell Mother about the rabbit’s foot,’ I begged Andrew the next day.

He readily agreed.

I managed to keep it a secret from Mother for three days.

The day after he first kissed me, when Aaron came for me, he looked so adorably sheepish, a lock of hair hanging down, hardly able to meet my eye, and scraping his freshly polished sandal on the stone floor, that I reached over and kissed him on the cheek. He smelled like fresh soap and spices. Hmmm...

I found that I liked the being his little good luck charm again. As I looked at his crooked grin, I had that warm feeling in my heart.

He reached over and fingered the rabbits foot still hanging from my sash. ‘I didn’t know whether you would refuse to see me, or clobber me with a stick, or do what you did.’

I put my hands behind my back and twisted back and forth, confessing, ‘I decided that I really like kissing, even if it is only with you.’

He smote his breast in jest. ‘Oh no, I’ve created a monster!’

I took his arm and squeezed it. ‘You bet you have! I’m going to do it as much as possible while I can.’

His face fell and he became serious. ‘With whom?’

‘You, for a start,’ and I pecked him on the cheek again.

‘Wow.’

I managed to kiss him three more times that afternoon before we returned home, once on the cheek again, once on the nose, and once on the corner of his mouth. He was absolutely delicious.

‘I don’t know if I can take all this temptation,’ he teased. ‘It’s hard to concentrate on little old ladies and sick and poor people.’

‘Am I a temptation?’ I asked innocently.

‘Actually, yes,’ he said as he gave me a tug on my hair. ‘You need to watch yourself.’

The second day I was more of a temptation. I decided to play with his hair while he sat reading to a blind woman. It was such an opportunity for affection! When Aaron did not respond, I leaned over and lightly bit him on the ear, which caused him to accidently substitute the word lips for knees while reading from the writings of Isaiah.

On the third day he gave in to temptation. He arrived looking rumpled and hungry from laboring all night, so I took him into the kitchen and fed him corn cakes and a fruit spread that I learned to make.

'What have you been up to?' I asked.

'Lamanites.'

I gasped.

'Been up all night gathering suplies.'

He really was a good person to do all that he did for others and the kingdom too.

My thoughts must have shown in my eyes, for he said, ‘I think you are finally beginning to approve of me,’ as he ate another mouth full.

I was, but I said, ‘I’d approve of you taking better care of yourself!’ and I brought him some guava nectar.

‘I like having you to do that,’ he teased.

I did too.

Instead of going visiting, he took me back to the little copse of trees and relaxed his back against the log. I wedged myself in right next to him, wrapped my braid around his neck, and tugged.

His head fell on my shoulder, and soon he was snoring.

After a while I took his hand in my own and examined it. His was thick and blunt and worn from hard work. There was a bit of dirt under one of his nails from his work the night before. Carefully, I cleaned it out with my own nail. Then turning his hand over I looked at a scar on his palm. Where had he gotten that?

I thought of the Savior, and that he too would have scars on his hands. I lifted Aaron’s to my lips and kissed it. I could forgive this young man.

I kissed his hand again and again, tears dropping onto it, each one releasing a bit of my bitterness.

Aaron woke and raised his head.

I leaned over and kissed him on his sleepy brow. He kissed me back on my eyelids, my nose, and then finally, lingeringly, on my lips. Hmmm….so soft and caressing! How I liked that! He hadn’t done that before.

‘I love you so much,’ he groaned and pulled me tightly into his arms. ‘You are my adorable one.’ We fit so nicely together. I cuddled deeper into his embrace and felt right at home, like a winter’s fire.

‘I think I’m starting to love you again too, but in a grown up way,’ I confessed against his shoulder. Lingering kisses had consequences. They produced feelings of love, even for enemies. I reached up and pulled his mouth down to mine again. How I wanted to love my enemy again!

‘Abigail,’ he whispered against my cheek, ‘That’s enough.’

I was busy making memories for the cold times ahead when this would be over.

He put me from him and held me back. ‘Don’t you know that there is a sleeping jaguar inside every man? Do you want to wake mine up?’

I looked at him in surprise, then said, ‘I suppose not.’ I thought about it a moment, and twinkled, ‘But I confess that I want to know that I could wake him up.’

‘Oh, you certainly have that power!’

I smiled. ‘Good.’

He kissed my nose and pulled on my braid. ‘You were safer as a little girl.’